


all the small things (true care, truth brings)

by asphxdels



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 2019 WinterIron Holiday Exchange, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Bucky's Metal Arm was Made by Tony, Fluff, Happy Ending, Identity Porn, M/M, My First Winteriron Fic, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Natasha Romanov ships it, No Sex, No Smut, Pining Bucky Barnes, Self-Doubt, Tony Stark Has Self-Esteem Issues, because why not, gets slightly angsty in the end, he's like 5 inches tall, only a little bit though, quite literally this time, shrinking au, tiny tony, title from a song, with art by my 12-year-old sister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22116964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asphxdels/pseuds/asphxdels
Summary: Prompt: Shrinking AU – Due to an accident, either magical or scientific, Tony has been shrunk to about five inches tall. He can't do much of anything, but it doesn't stop him from getting into trouble. Bucky ends up having to take care of him, and/or bail him out of some sticky situations. Preferably a getting together fic, and bonus if the team doesn't know Tony is IronMan yet and Tony has to try and cover for that while he's tiny.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 16
Kudos: 217
Collections: 2019 WinterIron_Holiday_Exchange





	all the small things (true care, truth brings)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrightEyesIllusionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightEyesIllusionist/gifts).



“JARVIS? What in the flying fuck just happened to me?”

“Sir, with the limited data I had access to, scanning your current state and the suspiciously unidentified exhalation which came out of the cardboard box, it appears that as an outcome of the trickster god’s promised prank, you’ve been shrank to the size of an average… hamster.”

Tony’s genius of a brain could barely process what it had been told.

“I’m a what now?”

“You’ve been shrank down to approximately 5 inches tall, Sir.”

As the AI kept explaning the technical side of the so-called ‘joke’ further, Tony turned around, barely avoiding falling out of the corner of his leather couch. His eyes started examinining the workshop with a new found perspective, quite literally. He slowly acknowledged how everything looked like he was standing in a giant’s room from a cheap children’s movie, and quickly realized how fucked up he was.

  
  


*

  
  


Bucky was unconsciously pulling the sides of his plain black t-shirt with his metal arm as he walked out of the elevator.

He was nervous for sure, and The Soldier making fun of his cowardness with whispering him funny thoughts in the back of his head didn’t help with his situation.

 _There’s nothing to be worried about,_ he told himself, climbing down the stairs one by one, like he could just bail out and go back up to the safety of his floor any moment. He cursed himself as he almost tripped at the last step.

 **For god’s sake, Barnes,** Winter said with clear annoyance (and amusement) that only Bucky could sense and get irritated by. **Just get on with it. You’re blushing like a school girl who has a crush.**

Bucky ignored the other persona in his head like he did every time when the soldier brought up the topic.

He had a crush on the genius billionaire who housed the Avengers and supplied all their tactical needs, so what?

If the same genius happened to be the one who was about to spend possibly more than an hour with him, _alone_ , to fix his arm, up-close and violating every known boundary of his personal space with the kindest of intentions because he was unaware of the soldier’s crush on him, well…

It was _his_ problem to deal with, like he was doing so for the last couple months now.

So as he fixed his slightly wrinkled outfit and made sure nothing was too out of place, he tricked himself into looking more confident than he actually was before he punched in his entrance code to Tony’s workshop and took a deep, deep breath. Then he went in for his weekly arm maintenance session.

At this point, he thought he prepared himself well enough, finding reassurance in the fact that Winter Solider was probably going to take over anyway, as he usually did when the other man tinkered with his prosthetic arm. What caught him unprepared though was seeing a Tiny-Tony getting in a catfight with one of his bots— his bot DUM-E’s metal claw, to be precise.

Bucky stood there and almost stopped breathing for a solid minute until he fully processed the sight playing right front of his two eyes.

“I swear to _god_ , DUM-E, I’m so donating you to the uni this time—Can you just not—”

“I really don’t want to interrupt your sweet bickering with your son, Doll,” Bucky chimed in when he discovered how to breathe again, he wasn’t able to figure out his feelings about all of this, but maybe an explanation of sorts would help he thought. “But what the actual fuck?”

Tony went into full panic mode and almost ended being a genius smash decor on the floor. DUM-E beeped happily as he got away with something which looked like a piece of wire since Tony was not pulling the other end of it anymore. The tiny brunette stood up, speechless for a second before he opened his mouth.

“It’s not what it looks like. I mean, it _is_ but, uh, if you just give me a second I’ll…”

As the genius trailed off, Bucky waited patiently and eyed his surroundings to get himself a lead. He couldn’t though, so he had to rely on the blabbering mess of a man in front of him to learn what had happened.

At least he wasn’t worrying about accidentally revealing his little crush anymore.

*

After less than hour, Tony and Bucky had agreed on keeping the situation a secret until Tony found a permanent solution. He was confident the shrinking spell was temporary though, so their main concern would be making sure no one else in the tower finds out about the tiny man’s situation.

Bucky was a little confused about why Tony wanted to keep all this from the others this much, so he was in no place to judge. He had a secret of his own after all, which had been the only way to convince Tony that he did not need to pay the soldier back for this _tiny_ favour. Tony had been the only one to know about Winter since that incident in the lab when Bucky was there for the first time for this arm, and what the engineer had done for him so far was more than enough.

Of course, Bucky and Winter had their own motives to help Tony out other than being in debt of him, but he didn’t have to know.

  
  


*

  
  


“Are you good over there, doll?”

He barely caught the small huff escaping from the tiny genius sitting above his neck, using his long hair to cover himself from any curious eyes.

“I’ll live. Where are we going anyway?”

Bucky thought of pushing the button for the floor Tony assigned him when he was first accepted to the tower which soon enough became his home, but he went for the common floor instead.

“How about getting us something to eat and then we can head over to my floor to, uh, talk a little further about all this?” 

Bucky wanted to offer Tony to stay with him until the spell wore off, just in case if anything would happens to the _tiny_ and therefore _vulnerable_ man when he wasn’t arround to protect him. He knew better than to just say what he was worried about out loud though. He didn’t want Tony to get the wrong idea, that Bucky thought of him any lesser than who he was. He just needed a little time to find a way he can better express his concerns without offending him.

“What’s there to talk about,” said Tony and it almost sound like whining to Bucky’s ears. “You’ll help a fella out until I get to fix this which shouldn’t take more than a week. Then I’ll pay you back.”

Bucky stuffed his hand in his pockets as he huffed and rolled his eyes even though the genius wouldn’t be able to pick up on his exasperated face. 

“Tony, I told you, you’re not ‘paying’ me back anything. I’m already in your debt for keeping Winter a secret.”

Convinced or not, Tony didn’t say anything back so Bucky thought the situation was settled at least for the time being. They had more important things to worry about after all.

*

  
  


“You know, I was kind of meaning to ask you about something,” 

Tony lifted his eyes up from the one huge pop-corn he was nibbling for the past five minutes to look at the soldier’s face he went on with his question.

“Why would Loki chose to prank you with… this?”

From his point of view, the whole shrinking thing might seem a little pointless Tony thought as he tried to think of an unsuspecting answer. Bucky didn’t know about his secret identity that was being the red-and-gold shellhead when people needed him, as Rhodey once put in words. When Pepper first found out about the armour, she wouldn’t stop her questions to why Tony needed to hide away his identity from even his fellow Avengers. Tony couldn’t tell him the actual reason why, so he had to make up something. He didn’t want to talk about his insecurities and self-doubt in from of anyone. 

No one knew who he was except his two best friends and it has to stay that way. Bucky wouldn’t see the struggle Loki had put him in with this seemingly harmless prank. He had to start planing his revenge, he noted in a corner of his mind.

“It could be anything,” Tony shrugged off, trying for the nonchalant impression. “He’s known as the trickster, after all.”

He heard the other man mutter something under his breath, probably agreeing to what he said, and Tiny Tony happily turned back to enjoying his giant pop-corn.

  
  


*

“Why are you not sleepin’, doll?” 

Bucky resisted the urge to tug the tiny genius into his warm bed with him and waited patiently as Tony finally looked up from his way-too-big-for-his-new-body StarkPad.

“Hm?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but repeated his question nonetheless. He could see ideas bouncing in Tony’s mind from the tiny man’s honey brown eyes as he thought of an excuse.

“Uh-uh,” Bucky interjected before he could open his mouth. “None of that.”

“But I didn’t say anything!”

“I know, but I also _know_ you,” Bucky patted the empty side of his bed with an expression that wouldn’t stand any objection.

“But I only need—”

“ _Tony_. It’s past 1 am. in the morning.”

The soldier was prepared for Tony to keep whining about how he couldn’t leave his project in the middle. Contrary to his expectations though, he watched the tiny engeer turn off his tablet after a minute, and crawl on his bed towards the pillow with a mixed sense of shock and satisfaction. He found himself smiling at Tony every so slightly. He couldn’t help but feel a little proud. Making Tony Stark go to bed with an intent of falling asleep at a sensible hour, was definitely a success to brag about.

  
  


Despite his little victory, it turned out one of Tony’s nightmares found its way to harass the genius untill he was awake.

Tony wasn’t the talking about feelings type, that much was obvious, so Bucky did the first thing that came into his mind and decided to distract the man by asking him questions about his latest projects. At first, Tony was a bit wary, still deeply affected by the flashback he just had. But soon enough, he opened up. He couldn’t resist the speaking about his tech too long. Also, it was a pleasant surprise that Bucky Barnes was actually a pretty good listener.

When he woke up a few hours later, Bucky wasn’t sure what to do with the fact that Tony had somehow ended up falling asleep _in his hair_. 

He was sure Winter wouldn’t stop grinning if he was the one in control though. 

  
  


*

Bucky was pouring himself and the tiny man who was waiting him in his room a cup of coffee when Natasha walked into the room. He tried to resist the urge to look up and see what she was on to as he felt her gaze watching him. He managed to keep his mouth shut for about a minute before speaking up, which he was kinda proud of.

“What?” Bucky gave in, not even bothering to hide the irritation slipping into his words. Natasha’s amused look wasn’t helping it, too.

He hasn’t been around the other Avengers much since the shrinking accident. He had been busy with keeping en eye on the tiny man, making sure he hadn’t gotten himself in any trouble he wouldn’t be able to get out of.

Natasha gave him a simple shrug. She was sitting on the kitchen stool, just had finished up shooting a text.

“Nothing,” she said and went back to fiddling with her phone. Bucky was about to protest, but Nat beat him into it. “I just didn’t think you as the braiding type.”

“What—” Bucky’s flesh hand automatically shot up to his hair, only to caught the small yet visible piece of hair between his fingers. He didn’t remember braiding it. His brows were raised as his look met up with Natasha’s knowing grin. Bucky knew who braided his hair, as did she. Dumbfounded, Bucky shake his head and reached out to the coffee mugs he almost had forgotten.

“I’m gonna go now,” 

“Do you know who made your prosthetic arm, Barnes?”

“Hm?” Bucky turned around just before leaving the room. “Steve said some SHIELD nerd made it for me before I was accepted into the Avengers.”

“Right,” Natasha said with a nonchalance tone, still seemingly tied up on her phone screen. Then she added as if an afterthought. “It was Tony.” 

“ _What_?”

Bucky couldn’t get an answer this time though. He tried to shrug it off as he headed to the elevator, hadn’t realized the grin playing on the Widow’s lips.

  
  


*

  
  
  


Things went fairly quiet for a few more days. Then the Avengers got called out for an emergency, and to Bucky’s dread the tiny genius was nowhere to be found. Bucky had no choice but to trust him to take care of himself. He followed his team to the battle, swallowing his worries about the tiny man he had unwillingly left behind. He forced himself to focus on the unlucky bad guy of the week who decided to get his ass beaten up.

Everything was going smooth for awhile, minor damage had been done to the part of the city the fight was occuring. Bucky was sure it all would end soon and he would be going back to the tower to continue looking after the tiny man, which became a comforting routine in such a short time. Even though it was practically mandatory from Tony’s end, Bucky liked spending time with Tony. As he got to know the genius better, he grew more comfortable and less awkward in the action with his little crush. It got harder to respress his feelings towards him with being that near to him almost all the time though, but he could work on that. He even started to think that maybe, his feelings weren’t as unrequited as he thought. Or maybe Winter was finally rubbing on him.

He was going on and on with the past week’s hopeful events when his train of pleasant thoughts got interupted the moment Natasha reported through the comms that Iron Man was down.

**

**

Once having seen the last state of the metal armour and the smashed head of the red and gold suit, Bucky knew something was wrong. Iron Man wasn’t to go down against an opponent such as this one, but yet the armour stood wracked. The man inside couldn’t possibly survived the incident, but the mission report stated otherwise.

Wıth all the information and clues Bucky gathered through the last week he spent being so close to the genius, it didn’t took too long for him to see what the heck was going on here. He couldn't figure out all the details yet, but he knew who had the answers.

He went to his room to confront Tony about his suspicions, only to find the usual spot of the corner which the tiny man had claimed abondoned. 

Appearently, the spell had finally worn off.

**

**

It wasn’t hard to realize Tony avoided to interact with Bucky in any and every way possible after he went back to his usual height and routine. Bucky didn’t have the chance to talk to him when Tony was actively running away from him like that, but even the genius couldn’t have stopped him when he bursted through the doors of the infirmary after the Avengers’ last mission, which Iron Man - _Tony_ \- took a major hit, _again_.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be here! Uh, JARVIS!” Tony objected as Bucky mached into the room like he owned the place.

With one steel cold glare, Bucky drew the healthcare staff away and out of the room as he came closer to Tony’s bed. He felt his heart skipping a beat as he looked over the injuries the man had all over the visible parts of his body.

Regardless of the guilt that came with not being able to protect the genius from getting in here in the first place, Bucky raised his eyes to meet Tony’s, not letting an ounce of doubt seep into this next words.

“I know you’re Iron Man.”

Tony he opened his mouth but had to close it again when he realised he didn't have anything to say. His eyes shied away from Bucky's gaze in embarrassment and guilt. He couldn't deny what the soldier was accusing him of, he believed Bucky would easily spot it if he tried to lie after the week they had spent together. For the first time in a long while, the genius had chosen to stay quiet and Bucky found himself worried deeply despite his intentions on his way to the infirmary.

"Why?" he asked before he could stop himself. "Why did you hide youself like that? Why didn't you say anything? Was it because... Because you didn't trust us?" He hesitantly added, "Didn't trust me?" This time he was the one to glance away.

"No! Uh, no, I—" Tony groaned and burried his face in his uninjured hand. Bucky could see that he was exhausted and needed to be left alone so he could rest. But he couldn't just leave. He had to know, _dammit_.

"I..." A few more seconds passed in silence, and Tony finally broke under the pressure of being the one who had _hurt_ Bucky like that. He couldn't let him think what he was thinkig right now.

"I was scared, okay?" He took in a deep breath and the words started to fall out of his lips once he started to explain his reasoning. "I didn't wanted to disappoint you by revealing who Iron Man really was. Christ, people love Iron Man, even the Avngers like him as a part of the team. But me? Tony Stark? _'Playboy, billionaire, genius, philanthropist,'_ remember? " Tony snorted as he ran his hand through his already messed up hair.

"Who would want the text-book narcissist of a weapon manufacturer as their hero, or teammate? I hated lying to you guys, you have to believe me," The words were getting out of him like rapid fire at this point. He felt like he had to get everything out, he had to tell Bucky all of it while he can. He hoped Bucky wouldn't hate him too much at the end. After everything, Tony didn't think he could handle if the man looked at him like everyone else he cared about once did, _like he had let him down_. He was soon to realize even the thought of it happening made the air stuck in his lungs. He felt like he couldn't breath as tears welled up in his eyes.

"You have to understand, I, I just—"

He wasn't sure which one of his personalities initiated the act, but he knew that ever since the two of them became aware of each other's presence this was the first moment they both saw eye to eye without an ounce of a doubt. That was, cutting Tony's self-doubts off right in the middle with an almost subconscious kiss. 

Maybe Bucky should've pulled back after first wave of realization of what he had done hit him, but he couldn't find it in himself to let the smaller man go.

**We could get used to doing this everytime he trashed talk himself.** Winter chimed in slyly. **That'd be a lot of kisses.**

Regardless of his small bickering with his other self in the back of his mind, Bucky's lips started to curl up with the barest hint of a smile as he felt Tony recover from his shock and start kissing him back.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> okay, first of all, i want to thank debbie for hosting the exhange and helping me though my first gift exhange ever. i have so many doubts about this fic but if i had to start somewhere, and i wouldn't be able to do that without her patient and kind guiding through the emails.
> 
> dear BrightEyesIllusionist, thank you for your hilarious prompt and i hope you enjoyed reading it.
> 
> all kinds of criticism and feedback are encougared and welcome.


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